May 3, 2012

How American Army Liberated Pope Benedict

On the afternoon of 3 May 1945 Major James Quimby was driving through Bavaria looking for a place to spend the night. As Executive Officer of the 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion, attached to the 45th Infantry Division, one of his jobs was to reconnoiter with his HQ detachment select a location for the battalion Command Post. At the rate the Allies were advancing, this meant a new location every day for several weeks.

The Germans had lost the ability to fight as an army. Entire units were without orders or supply. Many surrendered at first contact with the Americans. Correspondents described the action as “pursuit” but the men in the lines were cautious. The Germans had been “near defeat” many times before, but if one of them shot you it...

RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

As the German attack on Moscow, Russia was thwarted, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin called for a major counteroffensive. His closest advisers disagreed and urged for a more defensive posture, thus Stalin held back his demands, only... more ››

German Field Marshal Keitel signed the surrender treaty, but when?Germany first capitulated in Reims, France on May 7, 1945 and then a day later in Berlin -- or was it actually May 9? Russia in any case does celebrate the end... more ››

Rudolf Hess was born in Alexandria, Egypt, April 26, 1894, the son of a prosperous wholesaler and exporter. He did not live in Germany until he was fourteen. He volunteered for the German Army in 1914 at the outbreak of World War... more ››

Surrender at Reims Hours before dawn on the morning of 7 May 1945, a cluster of correspondents and press and newsreel photographers waited at one end of the G-3 war room at SHAEF forward headquarters in Reims. In the center of... more ››

REIMS, May 8-The Third Reich surrendered unconditionally to the Allies at Gen. Eisenhower's Forward HQ here at 0:2:45 hours on Monday. The terms of surrender, calling for the cessation of hostilities on all fronts at... more ››